


The Lads in Their Hundreds

by lha



Series: The Lads in Their Hundreds [2]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 14:42:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13079082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lha/pseuds/lha
Summary: Gabriel Lorca inherited many things from his Great-Grandfather.It wasn’t just his looks though, even as an infant he’d been captivated by his Papa Reed following him around with his eyes and then on all fours.  By the time he was three, he’d managed to work out how to break into his Mother’s office, pull himself up on a chair and call his Papa to ask him questions.  The retired Admiral however, took all of this in his stride and seemed to have endless patience with him even when his inability to sit still drove his loving parents to distraction.





	The Lads in Their Hundreds

**Author's Note:**

> You don't have to have read the companion piece to this one (the first in the series) but it will help provide context x

There had been little doubt about which side of his family Gabriel Lorca took after from the moment he’d been born. He was the spitting image of his Grandmother who took her looks in equal part from her tanned southern Dad and the chiseled features and dark hair of her Father. It wasn’t just his looks though, even as an infant he’d been captivated by his Papa Reed following him around with his eyes and then on all fours. By the time he was three, he’d managed to work out how to break into his Mother’s office, pull himself up on a chair and call his Papa to ask him questions. The retired Admiral however, took all of this in his stride and seemed to have endless patience with him even when his inability to sit still drove his loving parents to distraction. Gabriel learnt to parrot his Papa at an early age and say that ‘he had ants in his pants, just like his G’anpa Tucker.’

He’d gone to church with his Papa when they were staying with him in England, because if that was where his Papa was going then that was where Gabriel want to go too. Papa Reed had crouched down in front of him and they’d had a serious talk about the fact that if Gabriel wanted to sit with his Papa and the rest of the choir then he had to behave very well. He’d been on his best behaviour, absolutely enthralled by the music, and suitably distracted during the talking. At the end of the service and amongst all the fawning admiration of the rest of the choir, Gabriel had declared that he wanted to sing just like Papa. As with everything that Gabriel declared that he wanted to do because his Papa did it, the gentle admonition from the quiet man was ‘Don’t do it because I did it, do what’s right for you’.

Gabriel might not have understood this at five, when his parents had signed him up for the local children’s choir and he’d relished every minute of it, but he heard it often over the years even after the Admiral passed away. He was a teenager when it happened, and he’d shut down entirely refusing to speak to anyone at all for the first few days. Then the recorded message from his Papa had arrived; the older man’s quiet acceptance of what it meant if Gabriel was seeing this was reassuring somehow. He had often heard him say that he was an old man who had lived a full and privileged life but this was the first time he’d admitted that he was tired and that it had been far too long since he’d last seen his husband. The song he’d included wasn’t necessarily what Gabriel had expected from his Papa but it’s sentiment was so perfect that before the end of the second line, the tears he’d refused to shed thus far were pouring down his cheeks.

[Requiem - Show of Hands](https://youtu.be/AhHu2E4Bhow)

The power of music, the calmness and stillness it could bring as well as the emotional catharsis, served him well in the coming years as did the discovery of how often a potential suitor could be charmed by a pleasant singing voice. When he’d joined Starfleet the intensity of the tactical stream had been exhilarating, all consuming. He’d always been an overachiever but now here, amongst the brightest and best it seemed more important than ever. When he was lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling of his dorm tactical theories and stratagem running circles through his head, it was his Papa Reed’s playlists that he reached for. He’d read the logs from those early NX-01 missions, all of crew’s official ones and as many of their personal logs as he get his hands on but none more often than his G’anpa’s and Papa’s. While Lieutenant Reed would never have left his music playing in the background of even his personal logs, Commander Tucker had had no such compunctions however and particularly when his partner was away on mission, he’d often have the other man’s music playing in the background.

By the time he graduated, Gabriel had found the burgeoning Star Fleet musical community and at their graduation he’d performed Handel’s The Trumpet Shall Sound with a delightful cadet from the medical tract called Katrina Cornwell on trumpet. Then at the afterparty, he’d sung in a jazz quartet he’d joined when he’d discovered the joys of that genre. Once he’d had his first space assignment it hadn’t been so easy to maintain a commitment to any group but he’d enjoyed dropping in on performances and open mic nights. It was in those moments of still though, the ones he’d had to fight so hard to learn to embrace, but now were so crucial to his tactical role, before an assault that he found himself singing internally Eternal Father, Sure to Save. It was an old Naval hymn and while it spoke of _those in peril on the sea_ and a God he wasn’t sure he believed in, somehow it became his ritual and his comfort.

[The Trumpet Shall Sound - Handel](https://youtu.be/_rQYv8EsGSQ)

[Eternal Father, Sure to Save](https://youtu.be/1KCiMdR1ox0)

As he grew he found that his tastes changed and evolved. He was introduced to this group, or that piece and he learnt something from everyone who shared their own favourites. Still there were old comforts he returned to. The war with the Klingons was like nothing he could ever imagined and while he excelled in some ways, the cost was far higher than anyone could justify at every turn. He shut down on his own emotions and reactions for so long that when he did finally allow himself to grieve, when that hard won piece was no longer quite so new and finally, finally he felt like maybe it was really over, he wasn’t sure what it was that lead him to the old memorial. They would have to build a new one now, there was no way that all the names would fit, the losses were just too great. The melody had come bubbling up from some part of his memory deep, dark and unfathomable and alone in the cold of a day that hadn’t quite begun, he sang;

 _The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,_  
_There's men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold,_  
_The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there,_  
_And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old._

 _There's chaps from the town and the field and the till and the cart,_  
_And many to count are the stalwart, and many the brave,_  
_And many the handsome of face and the handsome of heart,_  
_And few that will carry their looks or their truth to the grave._

 _I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell_  
_The fortunate fellows that now you can never discern;_  
_And then one could talk with them friendly and wish them farewell_  
_And watch them depart on the way that they will not return._

 _But now you may stare as you like and there's nothing to scan;_  
_And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not to be told_  
_They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,_  
_The lads that will die in their glory and never be old._

  
A E Housman  
Set by Show of Hands  
[Centenary](https://youtu.be/JbFpQnJpHiE)

**Author's Note:**

> Well it took a while, but I hope you've enjoyed the second part of this series.  
> Thanks as ever for reading, and I'd love to hear your thoughts here or on twitter @LHA_again.  
> Lx


End file.
